Closest near miss /brush with death

redsonnylee

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1,538
When I was 4, I was riding a tricycle and fell down some stone steps whilst in Trinidad. Cracked my skull open on the forehead , they never thought I’d recover but did after about six months. Over the years the scar became less visible, in my youth everyone thought I was a thug because of it.
 

Swedish Paul

Member
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1,807
After the big storms in 87/88 I think, loads of trees down but a cold sunny morning. Out in the works van, a crappy Peugeot diesel, and going up hill closing in on a lorry going slowly on a country lane. I knew there was a straight over the brow, so gunned it so I had the momentum to overtake if it was clear. Timing was perfect, over the brow but something coming the other way so hit the brakes. Loads or room. Only the car doesn’t slow and starts to veer under the back of the lorry. Turn the wheel, nothing happens. I realized the wheels were locked so lifted off the brake and because the wheel was turning right, shot across the road, through the verge and landed in a tree that had fallen the night before. The left wheels on one side of the trunk, right wheels on the other, just balanced there. Managed to get a farmer with a tractor to pull the car off. Checked the car over. 4 bald tyres!!
 

Dan!

Member
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3,029
I've a few.

Last year when I got food poisoning and spent a week in hospital. Don't remember much about it, I was in and out of consciouness for 3 days, apparently the doc's said I was 50/50 for a while (only found this out about a month ago!).

When I was 19 I rolled my car over a roundabout with 4 mates in it. The bit where my head should have been was crushed down to where my rib cage was.

When I was a teenager I was cycling down a busy main road and my pedal snapped off (whilst travelling quite quickly) and I ended up going over the handlebars onto incoming traffic.
I came to with my head an inch from the from tyre of a Ford Sierra with a hysterical woman screaming that she'd killed me.
Fortunately she didn't.

Weren't you a passenger flying in a plane when the wing fell off once as well?
 

BennyD

Sea Urchin Pate
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14,994
A couple of others spring to mind;

1) Going over to Essex in the Maser, roof down, to see a mate’s new (to him) 250 SWB. Travelling up a long drag on a dual carriageway there was a a slower car ahead of me in the left hand lane, nothing else about. I was closing on him by about 20-25 mph, looked at my watch and realised I was going to be really early so I eased off. As I settled in behind him, we approached the top and a car came over the brow in the right hand lane doing about 70. Silly c*nt was on the wrong side of the armco . Had I overtaken the car in front I would have had a high-speed head-on. Still got there early though.

2) Instructing on Bulldogs in the Air Force I was doing a low-level navigation sortie with a Navy student. As we approached a ridge to the east of Gloucester (near Birdlip) I pointed out two techniques to continue; one was stay at 250’ as long as you can, ’zoom’ climb to the top and make a one off timing addition. The second was to apply full power, maintain 90 kts and the timing wouldn’t change. Being a sensible chap he decided to keep things simple and went plan B. We started climbing and as we passed about 280’ I heard the Tornado before I saw it. He passed 90* to us about 30-40 ft directly below us. He must have been ‘head-down’ and didn’t see us as there was no change in his aircraft attitude. I pointed out the value of a good look-out as it came from his side. Tbf, from then on he was like a f*cking Barn Owl, I’m convinced his head turned a full 360 every time he checked around us. Sh!t happens so deal with it, be there and cope but if it all goes wrong, die happy.
 

Oneball

Member
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11,071
Don’t count racing as that’s just the way it goes. But I reckon of been pretty lucky.

Knocked off my bike by a woman cutting the corner in the middle of Worcester.

Knocked off my bike by a woman changing lanes without looking.

Took three corners off an Audi running out of talent.

Ran over the side of a lorry that fell off in front of me on my KTM in a France.

Deer ran out in front of me whilst doing a pretty speed on my BMW in Scotland, just missed it, thought that was a close one. Unfortunately there was a fence on the side of the road. Deer hit it and bounced off straight into my leg. Both of us carried on a at slightly more conservative pace.

Spun an Ibiza at 70 in what the French would call brocage, just kind of oscillated up the banks a few times.

Car in front moved lanes only to reveal a hay ball in front of me. God knows how I got a Lincoln Town Car to change lanes that quickly.

And that doesn’t include stuff falling on me at work!
 

Markc

Member
Messages
258
Mine was when I was 17 and a passenger in a friend’s mini (proper mini obviously) pottering along a single track lane in the countryside when some jar of w@nk in an Escort comes round the corner doing 60. I really thought it was game over. I assumed some kind of crash position and closed my eyes. The weird thing was that the squeal of brakes seemed to go on for ages and I thought we might be saved but then fvcking wallop. Mini punted through a hedge into a field. Only injury was my mate who busted his nose on the steering wheel. Funnily enough I had two mates with minis and the were both 6’4”! The idiots!
 

BennyD

Sea Urchin Pate
Messages
14,994
Don’t count racing as that’s just the way it goes. But I reckon of been pretty lucky.

Knocked off my bike by a woman cutting the corner in the middle of Worcester.

Knocked off my bike by a woman changing lanes without looking.

Took three corners off an Audi running out of talent.

Ran over the side of a lorry that fell off in front of me on my KTM in a France.

Deer ran out in front of me whilst doing a pretty speed on my BMW in Scotland, just missed it, thought that was a close one. Unfortunately there was a fence on the side of the road. Deer hit it and bounced off straight into my leg. Both of us carried on a at slightly more conservative pace.

Spun an Ibiza at 70 in what the French would call brocage, just kind of oscillated up the banks a few times.

Car in front moved lanes only to reveal a hay ball in front of me. God knows how I got a Lincoln Town Car to change lanes that quickly.

And that doesn’t include stuff falling on me at work!

I think they call it Bocage.
 

BennyD

Sea Urchin Pate
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14,994
Absolutely. However, I was only pointing out how they spell it just so you knew how not to spell it.
 

jasst

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Messages
2,313
Closest to death was about 30 years ago when I was farming, walked up the track to work one stormy morning, went into the workshop, and there was an almighty crack, and a massive beach tree had come down precisely were I had walked about 30 secs earlier, that put the wind up me for a while. Latest not near death but a close call was about a month ago, had spent the day on a 'spirited' drive with mates over Exmoor, on the way home had just come out of a 30 limit, on a main road with my right of way at a crossroads a silver van decided to cross just as I got to the junction, I slammed on the anchors and swerved, missed him and just stopped short of going down a bank into a gate, if a car had been coming from the other way on the junction It would have been messy, was so shocked just sat there for a minute gaining my composure, the van driver made a sort of apologetic gesture as he drove off, he's bloody lucky I didn't hunt him down, cos they would have been picking bits of him off the floor.
 

DJS

Junior Member
Messages
76
As we re going off road I m going to throw in another tale of possible certain death .Many years ago 1985 i think myself and a mate had a job checking and if needed re fixing ali louvre panels on a 12 story building - yeah its a height related near miss .To do this we had to use the window cleaners cradle which was about 3 meters long , this being pre Health and Safety obsessed days we just jumped in and down we went - not to be attempted by the faint hearted but we were young and stupid . Anyway on the day in question the wind was a bit blustery but we ll be ok we thought so down we go about 4 floors down when the wind suddenly started whipping around the building and before we knew we had been blown away from the building and almost floating around - I remember the two of us at either end just holding on in sheer panic as the cradle spun around and smashed back into the building shaking up the typing pool . Needless to say we were in a state of shock and we also had the problem of the cables being crossed which meant one of us had to try and grip the building while the other pushed off to uncross the cables all while the wind was blowing .I think it took about 4 attempts but somehow spun it round and hit the up button ,made it to the top and could nt get out of that thing fast enough never to return .
 

MarkMas

Chief pedant
Messages
8,795
Speaking of storms, I was in a pub in Cowes during the Cowes Week sailing events in 1979, and some blokes I had just met asked me if I wanted to join their boat Gunslinger on a race the next day. I couldn't make it (had to go back to Uni), so they asked another bloke in the pub, and he said OK. The race was the catastrophic 1979 Fastnet Race in which fifteen competitors died, including the other bloke in the pub.
 

Wanderer

Member
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5,791
Anyone ever seen a ghost or had a NDE or OBE? I had an OBE once and I totally shat myself, I'll descibe it if anyone gives a shiiit.....
 

rs48635

Member
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3,181
First one - passenger in Sherpa Van doing the 3 peaks race while an RAF apprentice. Us mountain types began midnight Friday with a run up snowdon then get into sleeping bags to kip in the van up the M6 to Scaefell pike. Sorry to say the crew up front all had a snooze too. the driving team woke (middle of the night) and during the fight for the steering wheel the Sherpa weaved across all three empt lanes coming to rest on laying flat on the drivers side. After however many metres needed to stop just with the friction of tarmac on olive drab paint. My bad luck to be such a heavy sleeper I only woke up when the terrified passengers were exiting the van. My back was against the glass, so contributed to the braking effort. Near miss one
We stood on the hard shoulder looking at the van. I was barefoot, wearing front half of "run the world" T-shirt and Johnny fartpats boxer shorts wrapped in a singed sleeping bag. Few of the lads decided to push sherpa onto it's wheels. Started first time and drove from fast lane to hard shoulder.
about a minute later huge HGV battered past in the fast lane where we ground to a halt minutes earlier. near miss two?
 

BennyD

Sea Urchin Pate
Messages
14,994
Someone I once knew booked a holiday to, IIRC, Corfu back in the mid 80s. He was on leave from British Forces Germany and booked to go on the 22nd August, but his girl friend was working and couldn’t do that day so he slid it to the next flight. By doing so, they missed the Manchester Airport disaster. A couple of years later he booked a Friday night ferry to come home but was ordered to stay in base for a dining-in night. He tried everything to get out of it but was unable to get away. He came home on the Saturday morning instead and by doing so he missed being on the Herald of Free Enterprise. He certainly used 8 of his lives but turned out to be a complete tw4t. FWIW, I disowned him about 8 years ago and haven’t spoke to him since. You can pick your friends but you can’t pick your family.
 

Wanderer

Member
Messages
5,791
When I was about 16 I put this massive shelf up in my bedroom, humongous plank, thick wood, 2" thick, mahogany probs, painted it white rawlplugged into wall, no prob, all my craap on it, over my bed headboard, was there a year 18 months or so...

Anyway, sat morn. I was typical teenager slept till 14:00 easy, mostly 11:00-12:00 tho. This one time tho I got up up 8:00am and felt like something was out of kilter, had brekkie, mum and dad (RIP Mum, RIP Dad, love you both though I never said it, wish I had) all remarking about why I'm up so early....

Anyway, crash bang wallop upstairs, we all ran up, and my shelf had totally fallen off the wall, lying over my bed. Wood was so heavy and thick and positioning meant it would have twaaaated my forehead, I think it would have killed me, or at least made me an Audi driver or Benny.

But what made me get up early that one day?
 

GeoffCapes

Member
Messages
14,000
When I was about 16 I put this massive shelf up in my bedroom, humongous plank, thick wood, 2" thick, mahogany probs, painted it white rawlplugged into wall, no prob, all my craap on it, over my bed headboard, was there a year 18 months or so...

Anyway, sat morn. I was typical teenager slept till 14:00 easy, mostly 11:00-12:00 tho. This one time tho I got up up 8:00am and felt like something was out of kilter, had brekkie, mum and dad (RIP Mum, RIP Dad, love you both though I never said it, wish I had) all remarking about why I'm up so early....

Anyway, crash bang wallop upstairs, we all ran up, and my shelf had totally fallen off the wall, lying over my bed. Wood was so heavy and thick and positioning meant it would have twaaaated my forehead, I think it would have killed me, or at least made me an Audi driver or Benny.

But what made me get up early that one day?

Wood!
 

DJS

Junior Member
Messages
76
Anyone ever seen a ghost or had a NDE or OBE? I had an OBE once and I totally shat myself, I'll descibe it if anyone gives a shiiit.....
Please elaborate on your OBE sounds interesting - I saw a UFO once - yeah honest - broad daylight shaped like a giant metallic tic tac standing upright moving steadily on a windy day - no camera phones back then but it s forever etched in my mind